Grand Theft Auto studio Rockstar Games is on top of the industry, but a new round of lay-offs is raising concerns about its practices. Gaming industry lay-offs have been frequent as of late, hitting gigantic publishers and indie studios alike. With continual profits pouring in from GTA Online and GTA 6 on the horizon, however, Rockstar was an unlikely candidate.
As reported by Bloomberg‘s Jason Schreier, Rockstar laid off “between 30 and 40 staffers” yesterday, and the president of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain has decried the move as a “one of the blatant and ruthless acts of union busting.” A spokesperson for Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar’s parent company, disputes this claim, alleging that the firings were in response to “gross misconduct.”
Rockstar Disputes Union-Busting After Laying Off Employees
According to a union spokesperson, all affected employees were either union members or attempting to unionize, and they all participated in a trade union Discord group. Rockstar has not yet addressed these details, nor has the studio provided any other details on the nature of the employees’ alleged “gross misconduct.“
The likeliest explanation for Rockstar’s reasoning would be some kind of security concern, as leaks have been a major problem for GTA 6 in the past. Without any further details, however, the union connection is the only established correlation between the fired employees.
Gaming Industry Lay-Offs Have Become A Huge Problem
It’s impossible to ascertain the full scope of the issue from the outside, but regardless, it’s hard not to be concerned about the union angle. Rockstar was notorious for long periods of crunch in the past, and it stands to reason that the company’s employees would be invested in securing appropriate worker rights and compensation. While the video game industry is capable of generating massive profits, those numbers are often not reflected in developer salaries.
This isn’t Take-Two’s first round of layoffs this year, and the publisher previously cut a large part of the workforce involved in the next BioShock game. That situation was apparently motivated by a major overhaul of the game’s development, as it wasn’t proceeding in a manner that Take-Two considered satisfactory.
Regardless, Rockstar’s lay-offs are another reminder of the current instability of jobs in the gaming industry, even when working for a studio with nothing but hits. Hopefully, more details about the situation will emerge soon. If the union-busting claims can be verified, there could be room for potential legal action against the Grand Theft Auto studio and publisher on behalf of the impacted workers.
- Created by
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David Scott Jones, Mike Dailly
- Video Game(s)
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Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto 2, Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto Advance, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, Grand Theft Auto 4, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, Grand Theft Auto 5, Grand Theft Auto Online, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition
- Character(s)
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Tommy Vercetti, CJ (Carl Johnson), Niko Bellic, Trevor Philips, Michael De Santa, Franklin Clinton, Claude (Grand Theft Auto), Tony Cipriani, Victor Vance, Johnny Klebitz